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The epithet "Big Nose" has
nothing to do with any particular ability of Salvy as wine taster. It
was given to me by a little pestering boy a.k.a. "Louis honey badger"
when he saw me the first time some years ago. By the way I thought it would be
funny to use it here for this Wine Blog.

This explains the Blog's name. What you will find in the following is just a collection of Tasting Notes that I've tried to collect during the years of my personal tasting experience.

The Notes are personal and do not want to represent any axiomatic truth about the listed wines.

In giving the description of each wine I've tried to follow the WSET
(http://www.wsetglobal.com/) systematic approach to tasting: I believe
it's the best method for objectively describing a wine in details to
another person.

Each description is partnered with a Global Rating. This rating is something original and personal and it comes out as average of the 5 parameters that determine, in my personal believing, if a wine great or not:

Integrity (with respect to grape variety and terroir):
How much of the original fruit, soil and climate characteristics can
you find in the final wine. Are the original characteristics there, or
are they stripped off by inaccurate/aggressive wine-making or spoiled by
unwanted bacteria/yeasts?

Balance/Harmony: How the Acid/Tannic components are
counterbalanced by the Sweet/Alcoholic components. How the external
components (e.g. oak tannins) integrate with the fruit extracts.

Complexity: is the wine offering just a uni-dimensional
sensation (e.g. fruit forward) or layers after layers of different
flavors are coming one after another?

Persistence (length): how long the goods delivered by the
wine last in your mouth after your swallow/spit it? Just few seconds or a
minute or more?

Hedonism: The hedonic evaluation is absolutely personal, but I
believe it's fundamental to be included in determining the final score.
It is an indication of which level of pleasure the wine delivers to
you. At the end of day, wine is made for giving pleasure not just for
being a fluid to be analyzed by a robot. Even a wine that is technically
faulty can deliver the highest level of pleasure to some palate or
being just disgusting for others.

Each of these points is scored 0 to 5. So the final Global Rating will be between 0 and 5.